Thor 2

[amalthia]

I'm ambivalent about this movie and I need to write down my thoughts so I can move on. Be warned, this post may be a squee killer.



Reasons I did not like the movie:

1) Asgard did not look as grand as it did in movie one.
2) Frigga's death was too quick and had no emotional resonance. Plus, really???? Why did they have to kill her to motivate the guys to work together??? That was lame and predictable. It would have been far more awesome if Frigga was in on the plot to spring Loki from prison to help Jane sneak off planet. Or she could have been in a coma.
3) Each scene felt like they were moving from one stage to another, the pacing was weird and hardly any of the movie felt real.
4) Too much exposition.
5) No real family moments.
6) No real touches of reality in Asgard. Where are the servants, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the courtiers. Also, what happened to the throne room??? Did we see the auxiliary throne room for smaller gatherings??
7) Complete waste of Jane Foster/and Natalie Portman as an actress.
8) Lame bad guys with no real character development/motivation. (Iron Man 3 did a much better job with the Mandarin/Killian)
9) Not enough Loki and Thor talking as brothers. Actually not enough Loki period.
10) The trial was rather non-existent.
11) Not enough interaction with the Warrior's Three.
12) Why did Vanaheim look so rural??? Where did those marauders come from if the Rainbow Bridge was broken????
13) Complete lack of depth to the story.
14) I didn't feel like we really got to see the emotional fall-out of Loki's actions.
15) The soundtrack wasn't as good as it could have been.
16) The different realms looked like green screen special effects.


Reasons I enjoyed the movie:

1) It was funny.
2) Darcy and her intern.
3) Thor and Loki's interactions.
4) I did like the big fight scene at the end with all the portal jumping.

I think this movie fell to the bottom of the list for me in terms of which marvel movies are the best. Technically, it was badly done on so many levels. It may have been entertaining in some parts, but it didn't have the grandeur of the first movie or the feeling of characters connecting on an emotional level. In a few years this movie may be one of the more forgettable movies because nothing memorable truly happened in it. I sort of wish they could have kept Kenneth Branagh as director for Thor 2.

The plot doesn't have to be complex, what movies really need is solid character development and character growth. I don't feel like any of the characters had truly been changed by their experiences in this movie.

I think it's safe to say I was a bit disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high? It's just I expect a certain level of quality for a movie that cost this much to make and is supposed to represent the marvel movie franchise.

Comments

[blnchflr]

Killing off a female character to further the man's development, where have we seen that before? Oh, right, ca. every movie ever. I don't think I need to see Thor 2.

[amalthia]

The sad part is there was no real character development from the guys! The death was completely pointless.

Since, fridging women in movies turns you off, then not seeing Thor 2 sounds like a good call.

[majoline]

I loved everything about Thor so much, I am really hesitant to see this one, especially since the writers fridge Frigga. The first movie was so different from other comic book/hero movies and that movie's the reason I was even interested in the Avengers or the Captain America movie at all. Considering the number of people who aren't that squeeful about it, I think I might have to give it a miss.

[amalthia]

This movie does not have the same feel as the first....I really loved the first movie and saw it multiple times and with this one. I'm not even sure if I'll see it a second time.

[elf]

Thor 2 had much delightful fanservice. And, I suppose, something resembling a plot, which wasn't bad. And many cute quips, and some lovely character moments.

Not, as mentioned, character development. Just a bit of fleshing out of character concepts we already knew, with a lot either drawn from fanon or nicely reaffirming many fanon concepts.

It's easier to watch if you think of it as "the Darcy movie," establishing her as the next great player in the SHIELD-related Marvel lineup. (I now want her to show up on Agents of SHIELD. Ideally as Phil's assistant--possibly assigned as such by Fury, to keep Darcy from getting tangled up in the next big supers-related thing, and because keeping Darcy from doing that will give Phil just enough distraction to keep him from angsting all the time.)

Frigga's death was (1) pointless; the same result could've been gotten with a serious injury, and (2) weirdly unbelievable; apparently, Asgard doesn't have basic first aid capabilities.

The movie's fun; it is not deep, groundbreaking or overly plausible. There's a lot of gaps; I look forward to a lot of fix-it fics and getting a copy to watch with friends and give it the full MST3K treatment.

Many many great scenes, strung together like beads on a necklace made by a six-year-old--no thematic connection between them, no continuity of story.

[amalthia]

I feel almost bad about critiquing the movie because generally I did have fun watching.

[elf]

I had a blast watching it; I just recognized that it was very much "cool set of story-bits and character snippets in the middle of the MCU collection" more than a movie that stands on its own merits. As the 7th movie in the set (after 3 Iron Mans, Cap 1, Thor 1, and Avengers 1), it's fine. It's not expected to stand on its own.

I have no idea how well it works for people who only saw Thor and not the rest of the collection--but I suspect it's not marketed in that direction.

This one, I want a copy of so it can be MySTied. I think I was two minutes into it when I started wanting to yell back at the screen.

[amalthia]

This movie had plenty of Mystery Science Theater moments. :)

[delibby]

I'm coming at this from a different angle. I can't stand fantasy. In Thor, the bits on Earth were cool. The bits on Asgard were WAY to fantasy. I was bored. The same way I was bored by the three Lord of the Rings movies. Pretty, but boring.

Thor 2 felt more like a superhero movie and less a fantasy movie. Thankfully. It meant that I ended up enjoying the movie, when I had expected to be bored. I was going to see it anyway because I'm a completist, but I was expecting to not like it. Some of why I'm happier with it than you are, is probably because my expectations were so low.

[amalthia]

I think my expectations were too high going into the movie. I'm kind of tempted to see it again to see if I like it better the second time around.

[dorkpie]

Thor 2 was entertaining, I guess. It was far from a perfect movie, though. A lot of the things I disliked you listed, but the one that bothered me the most was definitely Frigga's death. I'm trying to find a reason as to why her death made sense narratively, and every reason I come up with just disappoints me. ):

[amalthia]

Frigga's death pretty much made me check out of the movie for a good portion of it.